Littering: The schools' job to fix the problem??

The Straits Times today reported that young humans here don't think it is a big deal that they are litterbugs. They give the excuse that the trash bins are too far away, and airily say that someone will come along and clean up after them anyway.

This fairly bothers me. What kind of upbringing have they had if they think that it's all right for them and everyone else to litter? Do they even stop to think what this place would be like if they all did as they pleased?

To top it off, the newspaper quoted some official as having said that a change to people's way of thinking was called for, and that the schools should find some way to do this.

Why, pray tell, is this the job of the schools? Where are this nation's parents if they aren't smacking their kids into picking up after themselves?

I seriously do think Singapore is bringing up a generation of spoilt brats who think there will always be someone who will clean up their messes. I guess they take their cue from their (lousy) parents who, just because they pay poor people who come here from foreign lands to be their maids, their precious darlings don't EVER have to learn to pick up after themselves.

Which radio station do you want?

This is what my human keeps laughing about. She says I can receive radio signals with this. I find it SO not funny.

I'm an amputee!!

Three days ago, I lost the last digit of my right rear leg to a vet's scalpel. I'm now a three-toed cat there.

It all began last Thursday. I got my paw wedged in between the slats on the top bunk of that double-decker bed where I normally hang out (to escape the fug from the litter trays at ground level).

I admit it: The usually cool me panicked, and yanked... and yanked. My efforts brought me blinding pain as the flesh on my last digit tore. But at least I was free.

I limped up to Aunties S and B, who look after me and my roomies. I meowed plaintively till they noticed the blood.

That moment, I started to regret sounding the alarm, for I was packed off to the vet.

I hate vets, their foul-smelling offices and what they do to moggies. I hate car rides. I yowled and spat all the way to Allpets & Aqualife Clinic in Jalan Kayu, more from fear and indignation than the pain itself.

The vet said my digit had to go. It was too badly torn to be stitched up.

Then a needle was stuck in me. A strange cloud descended over my senses in minutes. I felt peaceful and all at once, the pain and sounds and smells receded. I was put in a cage, from where I heard Auntie S calling my human. From my haze, I figured out she was telling my human what had happened, and asking for her permission to go ahead with the amputation.

Some blood tests were done - necessary because I'm an "old" cat, what the f***! - and I was left in the cage overnight. By then, I had calmed down somewhat.

I don't remember much of what happened during the operation at noon on Friday. All I know is that when I came around, my paw throbbed dully with some pain, and I had a satellite dish around my head.

Auntie S came to take me home, whereupon the vet told her that it had taken longer than expected for me to come out of being doped "because the anaesthetic tends to stick around a bit in his fat layers". Wha...at! Who's calling me F.A.T???

Anyway, I'm back at Auntie S' home. She's put me in a cage so I will be somewhat isolated from my roomies. I also have a tray covered with newspapers instead of litter to minimise chances of infection.

She has to flush my wound with saline twice a day and give me antibiotics for the next week or so. I hate taking pills, but the woman has A Way Of Persuading Me To Take Them Pills. I won't elaborate on that here. [Suffice to say, my human couldn't do it, but Auntie S... ah, the inimitable Auntie S!!]

My human came to see me today! I was so glad to see her. She whipped out her camera to take pictures of my paw, gulping a little at how it looked. (See picture.) It's not bandaged now, and the area was shaved for the op, so my bald dark red flesh, sporting some sutures was plain for her to see.

I can't see the thing myself, thanks to the satellite dish. I know she will go tell her friends that I can receive BBC radio and Class 95, just to give herself some comic relief - yeah, at my f****** expense.

Where do I go from here? Well, pretty much nowhere in the coming week, since my cage is all of one metre by a metre and a half. Frick! Auntie S told my human my fur will grow back in a month, and that she doesn't think my gait will be affected.

We'll see. So, are you sufficiently filled with pity now for this moggie? How about a little donation, huh, huh?

The inner artist in me

I feel very powerful today. It's like I can do anything I want to, and do it well. Strangely though, the things I want to do are all "artistic".

I wanna go out there and buy a piano, but do more than take lessons. I could do that, of course, but you know what? I feel I can compose music... folk rock, maybe. I listen to Springsteen, Sting, Sheryl Crow... and if they can put their thoughts into music, why the heck shouldn't I be able to?

And then there's art. I want to paint, sculpt, whatever. I see the works of artists hanging on the walls of humans' homes and see pictures of art galleries. I believe I have that sensitivity, that boldness to experiment with colour. Why not?

And those interior decor magazines my human leaves lying around her place. She probably thinks I snooze all day. But I look into them. My, I think I could be an interior decorator too. I have *sniff* good taste.

Oh yeah, I think I design a whole new range of souvenirs for tourists to Singapore to bring home too. Have you seen the crap that passes off for mementos of one's visit to this island?? Dead scorpions stuck in bits of plastic - godawful paperweights better off used as murder weapons. And those horrible imitation gold orchids pretending to be Risis ones. And those stupid unfunny "Singapore is a fine city" T-shirts.

I. Feel. Powerfully. Creative. Today.

One slight problem: I don't have opposable thumbs. BAHHHAHHHAHHHAHHAH!!